T w e n t y S i d e d

I spent most of yesterday morning hopping from one Team Fortress server to the next, trying to find one that was playing a fun game (i.e. NOT arena) with a good group (i.e. not brats) and which had enough room for myself and a few friends. The search was fruitless. I think Valve messed up a bit by having the free weekend so close to the sniper & spy updates. Longtime players have returned to the game to see what’s new. The servers were destined to be full anyway, so throwing open the doors to everyone was just going to exacerbate that.

Games were strange yesterday. Valve introduced a lot of new achievements. Veterans were going after them with gusto. The most polite way to describe this would be to say that perhaps everyone wasn’t playing in the most productive manner possible. Adding a surge of newcomers to this did not help. I think it would have been ideal to wait a week or two for things to die down before we embrace a wave of fresh players. Still, it’s not that it ruined the game. It just made things a little more crowded and hectic than they needed to be.

After a few hours of frustration I broke down and secured us a Twenty Sided server:

Look for “Twenty Sided” in the server list, or open the console and enter the following: connect 208.167.245.178:27015

A few notes about this server:

1. As of right now, the server variable for ALLTALK is on, which means people on both teams can hear all voice chat. This makes it harder to form strategy, but makes the game feel more friendly. You can congratulate the opposing player for a good kill or wish the other guys better luck next round. The voice channel trends towards joking, which is the atmosphere I’d like to encourage.
2. I know how a bad turn can elicit a burst of profanity from even the most polite player. Swearing is not forbidden, although I would appreciate it (personally) if we could avoid f-word carpet-bombing and sailor talk. Keep it friendly.
3. I’d like it to be as newbie friendly as possible. If you have a question, ask. If someone asks a question, try to help them out.
4. We’ve got about 360+ members in the Twenty Sided group right now. Assuming 1% to 5% of users playing at any given time (that’s a pretty reasonable figure for online communities) that’s just not enough to support a single server. So, the server is open to the public. Keep in mind that not everyone in there is from the site. Many will just be regular players, passing through. If lots of people want in but the server is full, we can think about putting a simple password on it during peak hours. (Maybe a “d20 only” Friday night or something.)
5. If you’d like to be recognized as a visitor from the site, you can put a [d20] in front of your name. So, change your name from “xXKillStealrXx” to “[d20]xXKillStealrXx”. Don’t feel obligated or anything.
6. Assuming I have the map rotation working, there should be no arena maps. Arena just has way too much downtime. I think the other gametypes already squander a lot of time with their pre-game timers and respawn timers, but arena seems to be a game mode designed to keep you from playing it. A couple of bad runs can result in you spectating for 8 out of 10 minutes. Which is about the same level of interactivity you experience while channel-surfing. This is less than optimal. The server should just be CTF and payload (my favorite) maps. Maybe we’ll mix it up a bit later.

I have set up Clan Pay, which is a Paypal-driven system that lets visitors donate to keep the site running. If you’d like to pitch in, please do so. I’ve learned not to underestimate your generosity, so I’ll warn you that the server is only $30 USD a month. So don’t go crazy. We’re looking for beer money, not cash to pull off an IPO. If people don’t donate enough I’ll be happy to make up the difference.

Open thread. Let me know how the server works for you.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.